The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1887-04-02

Amid all the grandeur of trumpet and psalm
To sound over earths starry rafter,
o will there not CULVER the whisper of age,
Or tone of childs merry laughter?
The twitter of motherhood over its horde,
Zone cadence that needs no refining
For the Lovelighted Land, the girls tender
song
Through shadows of daylight declining?
1.-THE grave, kindly speech of a father revered,
The lullaby soft of a mother;
The whisper of lovers, the promise of friends
To be true evermore to each other2
"This, strange human voice, from its irst wall
ing cry
To the whisper low down by the river,
When it dies at the door of the palace beyond,
Does 1t die evermore and forever"
What inspiring thoughts, touching
the soul with loftiness immortal yet
ending with the last as with the first,
with Interrogation ! With heavenly
sentiment yet unfinished And SO we
ask, when and where are these forever
responded too? When and where to
the soul do no uplifting desires come,
and all heavenly longings cease +? 1t
may be angels are not qualified or COM
petent to wholly answer and still all
questioning. On and on the soul is
destined to go, gathering to itself in
fragmentary ways, little by little, more
and more, wisdom, infnity and love.
These are requirements and experiences.
L know not where they eternally come
to an end, for these, though everlast-
ing in their scope, are not entirely Of
what must be infinite in deity or
God.
Jesus says: ''My Father worketh
even until now, and / work" That
ao,o is eternity with the Supreme. And
thus every where the unfinished, as it
seems, becomes with him measure in
the eternal melody and victory.
Then God must be an active being.
Thus the immutable spirit holds the
universe in obedience and unison; and
this that we call broken time and in
completeness, hints of the continued
and eternity.
To what heights already have we been
led in our thinking, and yet the unfin-
ished is there, AMI we would pierce the
vast unknown and have visions of the
unseen. Like standing on towering
hill or mountain summit, yet in the dis
lance others that are higher appear,
we would mount even these and gain
higher altitude and wider outlook still.
To us in childhood what fond dreams
came, but before the final was ours we
awoke and the dream angel vanished or
disappeared. Yet, those dreams, like
our first hopes, desires and loves were
not insignificant, but prophetic of the
unfinished, and what it visions of the
forever to the soul. Not of despair but
ecstacy. Not what casts down, but
elevates. Notice the thoughts of a
child, growing and developing nearer
to maturity and when maturer ones are
gained, still new thoughts come and
new if not startling wonders appear.
And how true, that when many years
are ours, even then we are almost 81
fenced as we realize our littleness of
wisdom, amid the vastness of what
there is to know and our need and lack,
and longing to ascertain. knowledge
then, like education, has no period point
save in the infinite. Thus change in us
means no violent humiliation of our
selves, for character changes slowly by
the taking On of what is new, then old;
imparting by feeling, thinking and dis
cipline, new vitality, the ever changing
life and its renewing spirit.
1t is affirmed, "God changes not, j." but
he changes us, and thus are we chang
ed. Icannot tell when the changing
process ends. L do not know that we
ever reach the last round in the circle
in the onward destiny of being. Etern-
tiles encompass me even now, and am
not able to fully determine when no
fragments remain; when there are no
broken pieces to be gathered by our
selves in the work of the all-life and
God.
So this gathering up the fragments
that remain, that nothing be lost, i'm
plies more than mere crumbs of bread
that perish. For sometimes we live in
a moment what it took us years to ex-
perience. We keep gathering constant
ly from out the past, that which makes
our hopes, our joys and our loves the
more complete and blessed. And thus
even in these the unfinished is grandly
touched with benignity and benefcence.
Creation is not finished. The God
within us, still creates, forever making
us nobler and truer, more like himself.
Bringing out the heavenly that is in US,
changing what is base in nature and
the human into the spiritual and the
divine. This inspires, gives work and
life its holy interest and zest. This
acts as the on-beckoning of heaven.
l have read of little town in the
Apennine mountains, built, says the
writer, among the towering lodges of
white marble, with only one cleft
through which one may catch sight of
the sea. Here are the famous marble
quarries-Old as the empire of the Ro-
rnans-1uhara frnnn that day 10 this